It's a bit more complicated than that. Half of Novorossiya (New Russia) was taken from Turkey and Crimean Khanate by Russian soldiers and later that almost unp

It's a bit more complicated than that. Half of Novorossiya (New Russia) was taken from Turkey and Crimean Khanate by Russian soldiers and later that almost unpopulated land was settled by many ethnicities, but mostly by Ukrainians and Russians. [0] When Russian Empire collapsed in 1917 this territory became Ukrainian on the basis of predominantly Ukrainian population even though the city population was mostly Russian and Jewish. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Universal_of_the_Ukrainian_Central_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Universal_of_the_Ukraini...